politics

City council is occasionally criticized for the amount of time it spends behind closed doors. Meeting away from the public eye is supposed to be reserved for rare occasions, such as personnel matters or delicate real estate transactions.

It's high time Calgary's civic politicians stopped automatically adjusting their wages each January.
Granted, the mayor and councillors turned down a pay raise last year, but earlier this month, they quietly accepted a 3.

With the price of oil plunging to below $50 per barrel, and the outlook for Alberta’s economy and provincial budget revenues falling in tandem, an oft-heard piece of advice is being recycled: Alberta should diversify her economy.

Potential candidates are kicking tires ahead of a Wildrose leadership race that will be critical to rebuilding the opposition party after the stunning mass defection of nine MLAs, including leader Danielle Smith, just before Christmas.

In an 11-page re­port, Mar­gue­rite Trussler said Dirks did not vio­late the Con­flicts of In­ter­est Act, but he did use his of­fice to re­solve a “spe­cif­ic pol­it­ic­al issue” in his fa­vour. Trussler, a for­mer Queen’s Bench Justice, wrote that while Dirks didn’t vio­late the let­ter of the law, his ac­tions may not have been ap­pro­pri­ate.